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Mike, often there is no measurement to go by when repairing a cars body or frame. So you start with what you know, if neither rail is "believable" you need to make one so. Either by fitting outer panels, along with cross measuring, along with visually looking for buckles or broken welds, or cracks, it's the big picture you are after. Using all these things you can determine if one of them is straight to then use it as your guide for the other side.

Brian

Cool. Thanks!

04-08-2011 11:35 AM

DanTwoLakes

Quote:

Originally Posted by my66coupe

My guess is that the confustion isn't so much the system (10 mm to 1 cm, 100 cm to one m, etc), but the reference. We can all look at something and say, "thats about 18 inches", but its much harder to say, "thats like 33 cm". Same thing with miles/km. We all can estimate rather easily what a mile or two is, but we have no frame of reference for km.

That's my problem with metric, anyway.

A kilometer is 6/10 of a mile, so 100 KM is 60 miles. There are 2.5 centimeters in an inch, so 5 centimeters is 2 inches. From there you can guesstimate pretty much anything. Those figures are not exactly accurate, but they're close enough for an estimate.

04-08-2011 10:36 AM

MARTINSR

Mike, often there is no measurement to go by when repairing a cars body or frame. So you start with what you know, if neither rail is "believable" you need to make one so. Either by fitting outer panels, along with cross measuring, along with visually looking for buckles or broken welds, or cracks, it's the big picture you are after. Using all these things you can determine if one of them is straight to then use it as your guide for the other side.

Brian

04-08-2011 10:27 AM

mustangsal

Quote:

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

Let's just forget about the measuring tool you use for a minute and look at your problem or possible problem. What makes you think you have a problem with your body stucture? And I have to tell you that everything you need can be done without those specs. Most often simply cross measuring will tell you everything you need.

Brian

Brian,

Thanks. I've read a bunch of stuff you've written here. It's great, however my choices a while back make that not the best choice right now.

About 12 years ago I made the decision to replace the rusted through rear frame rail in my '66 mustang coupe. So naturally I attacked it with a sawall, then ordered a replacement rail. Yup... brilliant move on my part... first of many I assure you. So after 10 years or so (and several moves), I wanted to actually finish it.

If I was starting now and knew that the other rail wasn't tweaked, I'd just use that as a reference, but with it being moved (once with a front loader, thanks to farmer Ray), I'm not confident that the other hasn't been. I wanted to take the measurements, not only diagonally, but along the other axis as well.

Thanks,

Mike

04-07-2011 10:10 AM

my66coupe

My guess is that the confustion isn't so much the system (10 mm to 1 cm, 100 cm to one m, etc), but the reference. We can all look at something and say, "thats about 18 inches", but its much harder to say, "thats like 33 cm". Same thing with miles/km. We all can estimate rather easily what a mile or two is, but we have no frame of reference for km.

Until the Euro, English currency was all fubar'd, as well as many other currencies worldwide. Compared to some of them, US currency is down right simple.

Developmentally, we humans go through a phase where language and such is easily learned. Once past that stage, it is far more difficult to learn/retain language. Maybe it's the same w/learning some math concepts like the metric and "other".

04-03-2011 07:41 PM

bentwings

Yeah, well there are more women than men in the U.S.A. and no woman wants to have a rear end that's a 1000 mm or larger so it is ANSI for us.. haha

04-03-2011 04:29 PM

Bowles8742

Settled!

Lets just say you work with what you got and conversion is not required. That really simplifies things for me.

04-03-2011 04:09 PM

JohnnyK81

Shhhh.. We'll switch him over to metric and he won't even know it!

04-03-2011 01:25 PM

poncho62

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyK81

Wait, so you have more of a problem with a measurement system where everything is based on the base 10 numbering system, moreso than the crazy imperial system where it's all based on things such as the length of the kings footprint, and the length of a gnat's eye?!?

Yep, guess I am just a stupid old man......Point is, that its hard to change what you have learned over the years, no matter how weird it is......They say that the English language is one of the hardest to learn because there are so many weird idiosyncrasies to it, but we seem to have it down pat. For a foreigner whos language has a set pattern to it, it is hell.

Another thing I have noticed about this subject...It started as a debate on 1/10s of inches and evolved into a debate on the metric system because, I guess on the base 10 aspect of it.........Not the same thing guys......

04-03-2011 01:02 PM

JohnnyK81

Quote:

Originally Posted by poncho62

It's been about 30 years since we did it......I have almost got it figured out.......

Temperature and speeds are not too bad....but this litres/100 km thing instead of miles/gallon ......makes no sense to me.

Wait, so you have more of a problem with a measurement system where everything is based on the base 10 numbering system, moreso than the crazy imperial system where it's all based on things such as the length of the kings footprint, and the length of a gnat's eye?!?

04-03-2011 12:19 PM

evolvo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Irelands child

Unfortunately we now have >310,000,000 people that just WILL NOT (can not?) learn that system. We could be like the Brits with their cars - measure distance in miles but buy petrol in litres. I mostly understand the system, but still have trouble visualizing the relationship to real life. For instance, the wheelbase for my '31 is 103.5 inches but in mm it's 2628.9 (103.5x25.4). How many folks would have the same problem. Then you get into acres vs hectares on how many millions of property deeds which some politician would make into law on property transfer would be required to be converted to the decimal system. This translates into costs to people as well as state, and local offices as well as banks/lenders - and it goes on and on and on.

Can not or will not? I was trying to point out that we ALL use the metric system every day. Our MONEY is METRIC. Imagine if we bought gas by using fractions, would it cost $3 & 7/16 per gallon? So if it took 17 gallons that would be how much? 17 X 3 7/16 = ?
My first real exposure to the metric system was years ago when I was a deck hand on a tug boat. The other deck hand was a Belgian who had only been in the states a short time. He had been a captain in europe but his english wasn't good enough for him to pass his coast guard tests. He always spoke of distances in yards. Like the barge had 15 yards of space left to load. I finally figured out that yards are the closet to meters and that's how he converted in his head. I do the opposite now!

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